Baksheesh (Bribes)

by D S Kane

  He smiled, running his hand through her hair. “Two hours. Watching you sleep. Listening to the rhythm of your breathing. It’s just before midnight. Can I get you something?” He shifted, ready to move.

  She shook her head. “Nope. Just happy you’re here.”

  As he left the bed, he faced her. “Ann, one thing I’m wondering. Why are you here? I’ve seen enough to know this place is like a fort. Soldiers everywhere. What’s going on?”

  She shifted her gaze away from his. “I can’t tell you. Please don’t ask again. Promise?”

  His face fell. He moved away from the bed. “I’ll be back. Gonna get a soda.” And suddenly, she was alone again. Minutes later, when he returned, she watched his face to see what he was feeling and thinking. Had she broken the trust they were building? But she found she couldn’t read him. Almost in a state of panic, she pulled him to her. “C, I’m so sorry. Please, will it be alright?”

  He smiled, but she couldn’t tell what he’d decided. He did hug her, though. To cover her feelings, she unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his neck, his chest, his nipples. And now he responded, slowly undressing her as she continued to do the same for him. Soon they were once again in bed, and new feelings, the new sensations she’d never felt before yesterday bloomed once more within her. He seemed never to tire, and she found herself shrieking and screaming for most of the night. As morning dawned, “Little Noisy” drifted off, exhausted.

  * * *

  April O’Toole stepped off the last stair, yawning. “You guys were loud.” She stared at Tyler and the Butterfly, then at Ann. “You, young lady, have a voice fit for singing opera. And you two little shits, you made the floorboards creak. I’m jealous.” The Butterfly grinned at Tyler.

  April poured herself a cup of coffee. “Doesn’t anyone sleep around here? She wandered back toward the dining room and over her shoulder said, “If I’d known I was staying in a whorehouse, I’d have called Eugene.”

  Within minutes, William Wing staggered down the steps, his hair sticking up, a wild slick black banner sprouting across his head. “Any coffee left?” Tyler pointed to the carafe. “I’ll need plenty. Sylvia didn’t give me a moment’s peace.”

  From the dining room, April yelled, “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  Wing took his coffee and sat next to her. “Sorry.” He called the others in and they all sat at the table. He turned on the vid-cam and logged into The Swiftshadow Group’s secure teleconferencing server.

  * * *

  As she spoke, Cassie turned to Lee, outside camera range. “No, sweetie, you’ll need at least twenty more servings of the osso buco before we open for dinner tonight.” Suddenly she caught sight of the others on screen, three thousand miles away. She faced the screen and forced her face into a smile. Then stared at Ann as if she noticed her daughter for the first time. Ann looked tired, her face was red, but her smile softer. She seemed to be ignoring Cassie’s image on screen.

  Before she could ask Ann if something had happened, Wing moved close to the vid-cam and held up a sheet of paper. “I think we hit gold yesterday.”

  “How? What’s on the paper?” Cassie pointed behind them. “Put it on-screen.”

  Wing nodded. “Here. It’s a listing of all Greenfield’s accounts, bank, brokerage, real estate, credit card—the works.” He pointed to Betsy and Ann in turn. “The Butterfly asked for a rematch and Ann agreed. Here are the terms. Trace all payments into and out of the director’s accounts to find a list of all the other names. ‘Egbert R. LeFielding’ may not be his only alias. You wanna compete, Cassie?”

  She shook her head. “No, I just want the results. The sooner started, the sooner done. Are you ready?”

  Wing drew a bright red scarf from his shirt pocket. “It’s one of yours, Cassie. Ann borrowed it.” He held it aloft. “At the count of three, when I drop the flag. Ready? One, two, three.”

  But by then Cassie was already working. Wing’s list was broken into region, as before. It was Ann’s turn to work North America, Wing drew South America, the Butterfly got Africa, and Cassie had Asia once again.

  She decided to work on Vladivostok first, since that’s where the Russian mafiya bought, sold, and warehoused weapons. It took her less than ten minutes to find that no payments came into or out of an account owned by a known Greenfield alias. But there were payments—large ones—from the United States. “Mr. Tyler, do you recognize any of these accounts?”

  There was a long silence as he stared at the transactions she’d ported to the large screen. “Yeah, I do. Two of these are SafePay endpoints. The third one, no. But the other two, well, I added them. For Mastoff.”

  She wondered, what is he buying? “William, please send copies of these two to my uncle Misha. He may be able to tell us what was sold from Russia to the United States.

  As Wing prepared to forward the data, Cassie returned to her work. But over the next two hours, she found nothing more of interest.

  Ann’s head bobbed up. “I think I got something. The day after your Vlad transactions. Same guy, different and nearly an anagram: Ellbert E. Friend.”

  Cassie worked out the anagram. “Tell me the details.” She found she was gripping the seat so tight her hands hurt. She shook them to restore circulation.

  Ann’s eyes moved to her own screen. “Wow. He sent fifty thousand dollars from his own account at First Manhattan.”

  “To where?” Cassie felt new excitement surging through her. She was sure they were close now. She saw the others sitting at the edges of their seats too, their faces set rigid.

  “To a brokerage account at Morgan. Mom, what’s a brokerage—”

  “To invest. Purchase stocks and bonds. What have you got there, sweetie?”

  Ann shook her head. “Mom, I don’t understand any of this stuff. She clicked on her mouse pad and the screen behind her filled:

  Account Name: Ellbert E. Friend

  Account Number: 87-2458-9716-LF

  DATE TRAN CODE DESCRIPTION ITEM AMOUNT

  1/16

  BALANCE

  STARTING BALANCE

  $18,426.87

  2/12

  CASH-IN

  INCOMING FUNDS TRANS

  CHEMICAL

  50,000.00

  2/13

  OPTION PURCH

  PUT CONTR

  DJIA@13,000

  18,500.00

  2/13

  OPTION PURCH

  PUT CONTR

  NASDAQ@2100

  21,000.00

  2/13

  OPTION PURCH

  PUT CONTR

  BERTLESMN@31.25

  6,270.00

  2/13

  FEE

  TRANSACTION FEES

  873.76

  2/15

  BALANCE

  ENDING BALANCE

  $22,819.11

  Wing scratched his head. “I guess he believes we’re about to get a massive correction, within the next couple of weeks. He’s betting everything will tank. Then, why didn’t he bet it all?”

  Cassie was lost in her own thoughts. She stared at the receiver’s name on one of Greenfield’s transactions and remembered all he’d done to destroy her and her family. Wing stared at her and spoke, but she didn’t hear what he said.

  William remained silent, waiting.

  She scanned her thoughts until it hit her. “He sent assassins to kill Lee, Ann, and me.” She shook her head and tried to put the man’s acts and name aside, but Wing’s question drew her back.

  She scanned the data on the screen of her notebook, then nodded. “Look at this.” She flashed a new screen atop Ann’s, and they all gawked at it. It showed all his options had decreased in value in the three days since he’d acquired them. “Ann, are there any transactions pending that haven’t been processed for Greenfield’s ‘Friendlee’ account yet?

  Ann nodded. “Yeah, Mom. Ten minutes ago. These.”

  The screen flashed another window on top of the others, showing two additional lines stri
nging letters and numbers without descriptive labels.

  Cassie thought she was the only one who might understand what the two lines meant, but as she scanned the two transactions, the Butterfly’s head bobbed. “Aha! These two top off his positions on put options for both the Dow and Nasdaq, increasing both by more than double. And after fees, there’ll be no cash left.

  Cassie nodded. “Correct.” She moved back to the bigger question, as yet unspoken: “Why does he feel the market will tank?”

  Wing shook his head. “Dunno. We’re out of fresh intel. This is where it ends for us. Don’t have enough data points. As you said, we don’t know why, Cassie. We don’t know how many accounts in how many aliases, and what he expects to make in total cash from all this.”

  Ann shook her head. “At least twelve aliases that I can think of.” She’d held up a sheet of paper with a list. “Several are female, by the way.”

  Wing scanned the list and nodded. “We’ll need to scout every name here. When we’re done, I’ll report to Avram. Maybe his contacts can help. And we should hear from your uncle Misha soon. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need to get some sleep. So, for now, we’re done.”

  Cassie nodded. “Good luck, guys. Ann, I love you.” And with that, she turned off the vid-cam.

  * * *

  As he returned to his office holding a steaming coffee cup, Avram’s phone rang. He used his foot to slam the door and hit the speakerphone button as he sat. “Shimmel.” He gulped some of the liquid energy.

  “It’s Ben-Levy. First, thanks for your gift. We’ve been spending a lot of time with him, teaching him to sing.”

  “Good. What did you learn?”

  “That Tobelov has a high tolerance for pain. That he’s the brother of the Russian President. And that he traded with Mastoff, Sashakovich’s life for a dozen suitcase nukes. Tobelov needed to display her dead body in the warehouse in Vlad to keep the others in his gang from believing he was going soft. But there’s something more important than our sweet Cassandra.”

  Shimmel had a bad feeling from the tone of his friend’s voice. “Which is?”

  “The intelligence agency she worked for. It had a few rotten eggs. Not just McDougal. In order to find the others, we’ll need access to the agency’s Bug-Lok’s transcripts. Please have Mr. Ainsley contact me. He owes me a favor for getting him released from Gitmo.”

  Avram knew that it was Cassie, not Ben-Levy, who’d worked the miracle of Lee’s liberation. But it wasn’t smart to say this. “Okay. I’ll call him as soon as we’re done.” He ended the call and sat thinking as he sipped coffee.

  What could he say to convince Cassie to let Lee do this?

  CHAPTER 29

  June 10, 2:36 p.m.

  The Swiftshadow Group headquarters,

  2099 K Street NW, Washington, DC

  Avram Shimmel considered the situation as if it was a battle in progress, and he had to move troops into danger.

  So now the Mossad has confirmed Wing’s findings. And Lee can provide the final link in the long chain. He picked up one of the GNU Radio units to contact Cassie and Lee in Devil’s Slide and pressed the preprogrammed Call button.

  He waited just a few seconds. “Cassie here.”

  He braced himself for a verbal skirmish. “It’s Avram. I need Lee for an assignment.”

  “Avram, you already have Ann working in Washington. And me here. You can’t take Lee from me!”

  Shimmel realized the implications of his request. He could hear the panic in her voice. “Maybe we can use him from your home in California. But it will be much more difficult than having him here in Washington.”

  “Whatever. I won’t let him travel away from me.” She was shouting now.

  He frowned. This would be hard to sell. And so much depended on Lee’s cooperation for the results he might achieve. He took a deep breath. “All right. Can I speak with him. Please?”

  Once again he waited, drumming his fingertips against his desk. He heard noise.

  “It’s Lee. How can I help, Avram?”

  “Ben-Levy wants you to hack the agency’s servers and send him all their Bug-Lok transcripts.” He held his breath waiting for an answer.

  “Why do you need me to do this? Why can’t Wing and his team do it?”

  Shimmel cursed silently. “Lee, you used to be the agency’s director of security, responsible for its firewalls. We saved your life when there was a Bug-Lok inside you. Ben-Levy helped you get out of Gitmo. And in order for us to end this, you have the best skills for the job. Your ability to use the details of the agency’s firewalls would yield the highest probability of success. You built their tech. Just use the GNU Radio to call Ben-Levy. Listen to him before you decide. Wing has gone as far as he can. It’s up to you if we’re to unravel the threat. Please?”

  It was a long time before Ainsley replied. “Okay. You win. But I won’t travel.” He terminated the conversation.

  * * *

  Ben-Levy’s GNU Radio chirped. He smiled. The game begins, he thought. “This must be the elusive Mr. Ainsley. Correct?”

  “Not exactly. It’s Cassie.”

  He frowned. “Ah. It’s been too long, Madame Sashakovich. Or is it Mrs. Ainsley now? I assume Mr. Ainsley is with you.” He realized if he could defuse her anger, Lee’s cooperation would follow. He smiled. She’d called. Half the battle was already won.

  “Yes. But if we help you, you will promise to supply a squad of Mossad operatives to keep him safe. Safe in California. He will not travel. Is that clear? Do you agree?”

  “I suppose I have to.” Ben-Levy’s grin turned into a frown. Much more difficult this way. He brought up a screen indicating the available operatives and their locations. He’d have to get them ticketed for travel. But where to? Avram hadn’t told him where they now lived.

  “Okay then. Tell me what you want him to do and we’ll decide if we can help you.”

  “There are a series of files nested within the agency’s servers. We need Ainsley to retrieve copies for us. The intel they contain is urgent for our mission. It might save Israel and the Middle East from a nuclear war. And it may also get you both back your lives, not to mention that of your precocious daughter.” He knew this single statement was powerful enough to reel Lee in. He could feel his smile reappear.

  He listened to the muffled conversation thousands of miles away, sure that Cassie held her hand over the GNU Radio’s mike. “You win, Yigdal. We’ll help. Here’s Lee.” He could hear equal parts hope and fear in her voice.”

  “I assume you want me to help you break into the highest security server, in the agency’s basement.”

  “Correct.” Ben-Levy had won. Now he had to collect his winnings. “I know about all their physical security, all the switches, since we developed almost all of it for you. But I need someone who knows the current settings for the firewall software. And knows the specific staff persons and their identifiers and, most important, the password to maintain the servers. First, who replaced you?”

  “Lemme see. Harold Jimenez was promoted to Director of Security when I resigned. So I’ll need to get Harry to send me an email and backtrace him through that to the firewall of the server where his desktop computer is located. It could be as fast as a day or as slow as never. I’ll get started and then get back to you, as soon as I have anything to report. When I have his logon creds, I’ll need to complete a search of the server’s files. So, why don’t you send me the file specs for Bug-Lok? I need to know what I’m looking for. Use Swiftshadow’s secure server ID and Cassie’s email address. I’ll have her pick the specs up after you tell us you’ve sent them. Okay?”

  All Ben-Levy said was, “Fine. I’m sending you the specs as we speak. And four additional operatives to assist your bodyguards.” He terminated the call and went to work.

  * * *

  Lee could see the waves crashing on the beachhead near their house in Montara as he sat down at the tiny desk in Ann’s room. He flexed his fingers, hands
at the computer’s keyboard. It had been a long time since he’d done anything like this. Apprehension mixed with anticipation as the desktop booted up. Jimenez’s email address would be the same, regardless of his promotion. What was it? He scratched his forehead, trying to remember.

  Within a few minutes, he’d sent the email using the secure Swiftshadow server to hide his location.

  Harry—

  How’s the agency treating you? Haven’t been back since I “retired” and I sorely miss the old gang of thieves. Did you and Loreta get engaged? Is she still working in the West Wing or did Mastoff sweep her out?

  These days I’m just one lonely guy looking to hear a little gossip.

  —Lee Ainsley

  Lee waited for a reply while he and Cassie ate lunch. The restaurant was closed Mondays. Cassie constructed two croque-monsieur sandwiches and cappuccinos. His sandwich was delicious, toasted cheese with ham and caramelized onions on caraway-seeded rye. While he cleaned the dishes after they ate, he heard the computer chime. “Be right back.” He ran up the stairs and sat at Ann’s desktop. There it was:

  Ainsley—

  Don’t ever email me again at the agency.

  —Jimenez

  “Got him!” He rocketed down the stairs, smiling.

  Cassie looked up as he sat down. “So it did work, didn’t it?”

  “Uh huh. The rest of this will be a walk in the park. Wanna share the fun?”

  She smiled. “But of course.” They walked up the stairs together. Cassie detoured to their bedroom and brought her notebook computer with her. They returned to Ann’s room. “It’s been a long time since we hacked together.” She touched his hand. “Ready?”

  But before she could sit, the GNU Radio buzzed. She looked at the screen. Shimmel. “Avram, how can I help?”

  “I have a possible solution to finding out what was bought and shipped from the Russian mafiya. The big clue was baksheesh. Trace the bribes. There will be a trail, possibly in cash, but the cash would be deposited. We already have the approximate dates. Please include this with your other assignments.”